Draft of a Chapter to appear in Literacies and
Learning, Editor: Alister Cumming

Technology and Literacies: From Print
Literacy to Dialogic Literacy

Carl Bereiter and
Marlene Scardamalia

Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto

A web search on the
phrase “technology and literacy” will locate thousands of documents, almost all
of which deal with “technological literacy” or ways of integrating technology
into literacy instruction. Except for vague and optimistic pronouncements,
there is very little about what technology can contribute to literacy
development and almost nothing about how technology should figure in an
education system’s literacy policy. The confusion between “technological literacy”
and “technology for literacy” is especially unfortunate. The two are worlds
apart and there is no reason to assume that people who speak learnedly about
the first have knowledge relevant to the second. Educational policies need to
be concerned with both,but the
semantic overlap between the two is far from providing a reason to stretch one
policy to cover them. What tends to get neglected in the confusion is
“technology for literacy.” This article endeavors to remedy that neglect.

First, however, we note a
point made by many of the writers on technology and literacy: New technology
has brought with it an expanded conception of literacy. The kinds of documents
available on the web and circulated as e-mail attachments may include, in
addition to written language, logos and typographical ornamentation, pictures,
graphs, hypertext links, animations, video segments, sound bites, and Java
applets. Each of these components has its technology, with which students must
become proficient if they are to produce such documents themselves. Although
this is a new expectation for schools to meet, its principal challenges are
those of finances, scheduling, and inservice training. There is little that
learning technology research can contribute to meeting these challenges.
Indeed, the common report is that if the technology is available and teachers
are confident in letting students use it, the learning of new media skills
takes care of itself.

Where research is relevant is
in (1) harnessing technology to the solution of long-standing problems of
literacy and (2) addressing the higher-level skills called for in a
knowledge-based economy. On both of these counts, most of the technology
currently in use in schools is disappointing. Although it makes limited
contributions, it does not take advantage of available scientific knowledge,
let alone push the envelope. This is unlikely to change unless educational
decision-makers become more sophisticated in their demands.

The main contribution to
policy-making that we hope to make in this article is to raise the expectations
of decision makers in terms of what they could be demanding from technology
providers. In the early days of information technology use in schools the
emphasis was on comfort level, ease of integration into existing activities,
and the “Wow!” factor. Vendors accommodated brilliantly to these demands, and
continue to do so. But as teachers become more familiar with technology, they
are more prepared to deal with software of some complexity, to experiment with
new educational possibilities enabled by technology—and they are less easily
“wowed.” In short, they are ready for something more. Accordingly, we focus in
the following sections on what “something more” could consist of as regards
literacy development.

There are many paths that
could be followed in exploring the potential of technology for literacy
development. The path we follow here will seem familiar at the outset but will
then shift to unfamiliar and uncharted territory. The path starts with reading
and writing as commonly taught and practiced and moves from there toward what
we will call “dialogic literacy.” This is an ancient literacy, of which the
Socratic dialogues have traditionally served as the model. Modern information
technology not only provides a means by which such dialogues can overcome
restrictions of time and space, it affords means by which dialogue can become
more dynamic, democratic, and creative. Dialogue can be seen to underlie all
the knowledge-creating disciplines and professions. Thus dialogic literacy, we
shall argue, is the fundamental literacy for a “knowledge society,” and
educational policy needs to be shaped so as to make it a prime objective.

Technology and Print Literacy

Indicative of the
changes wrought by technology in the landscape of literacy is the fact that we
no longer have an entirely suitable term for literacy as traditionally
conceived. We adopt the term “print literacy” here, while assuming that the
term also embraces the diminishing species of handwritten documents and also
documents that may be produced by dictation or use of speech-to-text
technology. Although the means for encoding and decoding written text may
change, there is little basis for the belief that print literacy, as broadly
conceived, is becoming obsolete. If anything, the increasing complexity of
knowledge in almost all fields is placing increasing demands on people’s
ability to compose and comprehend written text (OECD-OCDE, 2000).

Research makes it clear that
reading and writing comprise a number of separable skills (Stanovich &
Cunningham, 1990). Technology has demonstrated just how separable these skills
are. There are separate pieces of software that can translate text into speech
and speech into text, check and correct spelling, spot grammatical errors,
evaluate style, and even produce summaries of documents. On the other hand,
technology is not yet up to the level of integrated competence that enables a
person to read a handwritten note on a refrigerator door and alter meal plans
accordingly. Not surprisingly, therefore, learning technology has tended to
focus on subskills rather than on a wholistic approach to print literacy. One
of the more legitimate complaints against subskill approaches to literacy is
that many of the identified subskills are tangential ones unrelated to the
actual cognitive needs of learners. Traditional workbooks are full of exercises
in sequencing and classification, word-picture matching, sound-picture
matching, and questions about paragraph content that are not based on any
theory or evidence but are closely aligned with the kinds of items that appear
on reading achievement tests. Unfortunately, much learning technology simply
transfers these dubious exercises to an electronic medium, with some
enhancement of their entertainment value but no significant change in pedagogy.

• Phonemic awareness
training.Phonemic awareness is awareness of identifiable parts (for
instance, a set of 40 or so speech sounds) that in various combinations make up
the spoken words of a language. Its importance in learning to read an
alphabetical language is now well established (Adams, 1990; Treiman, 2000).
Available computer software can handle parts of the training that call on the
learner to recognize speech sounds—for instance, by making same-different
judgments or counting syllables—but the technology of speech recognition is not
yet up to the level of accuracy required for software to handle the
complementary part of the training that calls on the learner to produce the
sounds—for instance, by producing a word that rhymes with a presented word or
replacing one vowel sound with another in a spoken word. Because phonemic
awareness is a wholly personal acquisition, much influenced by prior language
experience, software that could individualize training would do much to enhance
early literacy teaching.

•Decoding instruction.Phonics
instruction has two components, called “analytic” and “synthetic.” The analytic
component, commonly carried out through workbook exercises and word analysis,
may be thought of as an extension of phonemic awareness training, extending it
to the relations between word sounds and spellings. The synthetic component
involves what is popularly called “sounding-out” as a means of decoding
unfamiliar written words. In recent decades, beginning reading instruction in
English-speaking countries—in both “traditional” and “whole language”
classrooms—has been largely confined to the analytic component, whereas
research strongly supports an emphasis on the synthetic (National Reading
Panel, 2000). Computer-based instruction and exercises can easily handle the
analytic component, and that is what most of the available software does. The
synthetic component, however, requires speech recognition at a level beyond
existing technology. Thus an unfortunate result of the introduction of
computers into primary grade classrooms has been to encourage an increased
emphasis on the analytic component, which already tends to be over-emphasized,
and to encourage further neglect of the synthetic.

•Assisted oral reading. The decoding of print, whether by “sounding out” or by visual recall,
can impede reading comprehension if it is slow and laborious, as it tends to be
in the early years and as it tends to remain with poor readers. A tested means
of building up fluency is oral reading, with a teacher or aide helping out in
the recognition of difficult words, so as to allow fluent reading to proceed.
In practice, this has meant either round-robin oral reading or individual
tutoring. Recently developed applications, however—specifically, Soliloquy’s
Reading Assistant (http://www.reading-assistant.com/) and Project LISTEN’s
Reading Tutor (Mostow, et al., 2003)—have proven capable of performing the
helper role in oral reading, a boon to teachers who do not have aides capable
of doing that work. This helper role requires speech recognition, but computer
recognition of words-in-context is much more successful than recognition of
isolated words or word sounds, which makes computer-assisted oral reading
feasible even when computer-assisted synthetic phonics is not.

•Comprehension strategy instruction.Much of
what is called “teaching comprehension” consists merely of the teacher asking
comprehension questions. This activity is easily carried out by computer, and
there is an almost unlimited supply of software for this purpose; but its
value, except as rehearsal for test-taking, is questionable. Reading research
has demonstrated more potential gain from teaching students to be strategic in
their approach to reading. Comprehension strategies are mental actions carried
out during the course of reading for the purpose of solving comprehension
problems, making connections, or otherwise getting more out of the reading than
is gained by a more passive approach. There is ample evidence that such
strategies distinguish good from poor readers, that younger readers make
relatively little use of them, that they are teachable, and that teaching them
yields gains in comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). However, it is
also the case that few teachers teach them and that enabling students to
incorporate comprehension strategies into their normal practice requires much
more intensive teaching than is usually devoted to it. It is much easier to
teach procedures that are carried out after reading or during interruptions of
it than to teach processes that must go on covertly during reading. Again, the
role of technology seems to be to increase the emphasis on what is easiest to
implement. What makes the teaching of comprehension strategies inherently
difficult is that it must intervene in an ongoing and typically over-learned
process. It is within the realm of possibility that a computer could provide
strategy coaching on an ask-for-help basis. This has proved successful in other
contexts (e.g., Davis & Linn, 2000). The student who experiences a
comprehension difficulty could hit a key and the computer, instead of supplying
an explanation of the difficult text passage, could suggest an appropriate
strategy for dealing with the difficulty. Much more challenging, but
foreseeable as a possibility in artificial intelligence, is for the computer to
detect comprehension difficulties by analyzing the oral reading speech stream,
eye fixations, and other clues, and prompt strategy use even when the student
is unaware of a difficulty. In summary, computer-assisted teaching of
comprehension strategies lies in the future; it would be a mistake to assume
that existing software claimed to “teach comprehension” actually does so.

•Summarization. Straddling
reading and writing is the production of summaries. Summarization during
reading is a strategy used by good readers (Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995);
summarization after reading is a well-recognized study skill. The accuracy of a
summary is an indicator of level of comprehension. And the ability to produce a
cogent summary is a useful composition skill. For both practical and
ideological reasons, however, summarization has not played a large role in
literacy teaching. New technology may change that. Latent Semantic Analysis is
a technology that can both evaluate how closely a summary maps on to the
content of a text and detect important missed or distorted points. Summary
Street, an instructional tool based on this technology, enables students to test
their own comprehension and to revise their summaries in pursuit of a higher
score (Kintsch, et al., in press).

•Vocabulary instruction.Limited vocabulary is a
serious handicap in both reading and writing. Various direct and indirect
approaches to vocabulary development have been tested, with generally positive
results. The consensus seems to be that vocabulary needs to be approached in a
variety of ways—that students need to encounter and use a word often and in
varied contexts in order for it to become part of their active vocabulary. An
analysis of vocabulary development software by Wood (2001) indicates that there
is considerable variety in the kinds of experience different software
applications provide, suggesting that an assortment of such resources could
contribute to overall growth of vocabulary.

•Teaching writing mechanics and conventions.Users
of the leading word processor will already be familiar with the strengths and
limitations of computer intervention in writing mechanics and style. From an
educational standpoint an important issue is whether this kind of software
supports the learning of spelling, grammar, andstyle conventions or whether it merely compensates for the
lack of such learning. There appears to be marvellously little concern about
this issue, compared to concerns about the parallel issue of pocket calculators
and arithmetic. Instead, curriculum standards often treat word processor use
(along with spell checkers and the like) as a composition skill in its own
right. Reviewing research at the post-secondary level, Goldfine (2001) found
that the effects of word processor use were largely negative, resulting in the
development of more careless and mindless writing habits. Rather than
advocating the avoidance of word processors, however, Goldfine suggested, for
instance, turning off the spelling and grammar checkers until after students
have done their own proofreading, then turning them on so that students could
compare the errors theydetected
to the errors detected by the machine.

•Teaching and supporting composing strategies.Essentially the same story can be told here as with reading
comprehension strategies. There are identifiable strategies that distinguish
expert from less expert writers; these strategies are teachable; teaching them
improves writing. But teaching them is difficult because, again, it means
intervening in an ongoing process. However, if the student is composing on a
computer the possibilities for context-sensitive intervention in the form of
cues or suggestions are much greater than with reading. We are not aware of any
software in which coaching is based on analysis of the actual text being
produced by the student, but several applications interact with the student on
the basis of the student’s indicated goals and plans. Two that have produced
positive results are the Writing Partner (Zellemeyer et al., 1991) and MAESTRO
(Rowley & Meyer, 2003).

In summary, technology has so
far made limited contributions to the teaching of print literacy, but these contributions
are offset by a tendency to emphasize the aspects of literacy instruction that
are easiest to implement on a computer. In this way, instructional software
provides unbalanced instruction and reinforces a bias toward low-level
cognitive processes (even when it is touted as teaching thinking skills). None
of this is likely to change unless educational decision-makers become more
sophisticated in their demands. The past quarter-century has seen an amazing
growth in understanding of print literacy, and this understanding is readily
available to software developers; but until there is pressure from customers,
they have no incentive to upgrade.

Contexts for Development of Print Literacy

A criticism that may be
brought against all the approaches discussed in the preceding section is that
the skills they teach are decontextualized. Computers have played an ambiguous
role with regard to contexts for literate activity. On one hand, desktop publishing,
web publishing, and e-mail have made it possible for students to write for real
and extended audiences. According to numerous reports, this is a great
motivator and encourages students to take greater care with their writing. (The
most serious attention to style and mechanics we have seen occurred when third-graders
were producing work that would be read by students in a higher grade.) On the
other hand, instructional software, as discussed in the preceding section, has
contributed to decontextualization rather than creation of a meaningful
context.

The principal response to the
problem of contextualization has been project-based learning . (Much of the activity is reflected in web sites
that provide project descriptions and resources and ways to connecting with
other projects. As of July, 2003, a web search on “project-based
learning”locates more than 50,000 documents, and restricting the search to any
particular country’s domain name will reveal that project-based learning has
truly taken hold world-wide). As promoted in countless workshops and
professional development courses, project-based learning involves students
working in small groups to gather information on a topic or issue of interest
and use it to produce a report, usually a multimedia document or slide
presentation.Projects can be
carried out using standard Web browsers, word processors, and presentation
tools, but software specifically designed to facilitate school projects is also
available.

There are wide variations in
what project-based learning actually amounts to. At one extreme, it is merely a
dressed-up version of the traditional school “project” or research report. It
is still essentially a cut-and-paste operation, except that the cutting and
pasting are now done with software tools.Both the meaningfulness of the context and its relevance to literacy
development are questionable. More highly developed and researched approaches
to project-based learning, however, put the main emphasis on content rather
than presentation (e.g., Marx, et al., 1997; Bell, Davis, & Linn, 1995).
Generally, considerable pains are taken to ensure that the projects are
engaging ones that are relevant to important ideas or issues in a field of
study. Accordingly, they are normally considered as approaches to science
education or education in some other content field rather than as literacy
education. In contrast, the traditional “projects” or “research reports” are
often treated as a part of language arts education, with recipes for producing
them appearing in language arts textbooks.

From a literacy perspective,
the issue in considering project-based learning is what kind of environmental
press it creates for literacy. To what extent do project activities create a
need for more careful reading, deeper comprehension, clearer exposition, more
convincing argumentation and the like? Evidence is lacking to answer this
question, but it does seem fair to say that project activities are not usually
designed with such objectives in mind.

Dialogic Literacy

In recent years a number
of different strands of thought and research have produced a heightened
recognition of the role that discourse plays in the advancement of scientific
knowledge and understanding (Gross, 1990; Simons, 1989). This is a development
that deserves equal attention in other subject fields, although its contrast to
earlier views is not so easily apparent. Ever since the curriculum reforms of
the 1950s, the received wisdom has been that hands-on experimentation is the
heart of science. The new view does not deny the importance of experimentation,
but it holds that knowledge advances by bringing experimental findings into a
sustained discourse the purpose of which is to advance the state of knowledge
and understanding. The same can be said about empirical research in history or
any other field. This so-called “rhetorical turn” in the philosophy of
knowledge clearly places a heightened emphasis on literacy. Moreover, it places
emphasis on a level of literacy considerably higher than the levels that
normally figure in curriculum guidelines, standards, and tests.

Functional literacy may be
defined as the ability to comprehend and use communication media to serve the
purposes of everyday life. We will define “dialogic literacy” as the ability
to engage productively in discourse whose purpose is to generate new knowledge
and understanding. This definition is
not tied to any particular representational medium, so long as the medium is
one through which people can interact in a knowledge-building way. In
chemistry, for instance, dialogic literacy may require the ability to
comprehend and express ideas using the conventions of chemical diagrams
(Michalchik,et al, in press).

The term “dialogic literacy”
is not original with us but appears in some of the literature on college
writing instruction (e.g., Coogan, 1999; Cooper, 1994). There, however,
dialogic is contrasted to monologic literacy, mainly in political terms:
Dialogue is seen as democratic, whereas monologue is seen as authoritarian.
From this standpoint, dialogic literacy is treated as a practice to be
instituted rather than as a competence to be acquired. The closest we have seen
to treating dialogic literacy as an attainment is in some discussions of
problems in sustaining high-quality discourse in e-mail or threaded discussions
(e.g., Shamoon, 2001). In the present discussion we explicitly treat “dialogic
literacy” as an attainable competence. To speak of dialogic literacy in this
sense is to imply that people may possess it in varying degrees and that it is
continuously improvable.

Dialogic literacy, like other
literacies, involves many skills and attributes and is context-dependent. That
is, the ability to contribute through conversation to knowledge creation in one
context does not ensure that the same will suffice in another context. The
defining skills of dialogic literacy are those without which one’s ability to
contribute to knowledge advancement will be limited in any conversational
context. What might those indispensible skills be? Lists of dialogue skills
that address this “necessary but not sufficient” criterion have a certain
obviousness about them. They are the kinds of things anyone would think of when
asked, “What do you need in order to be a good participant in a dialogue?” For
instance:

Dialogue is a conversational
practice. Like sports, exercising, or other practices, you build skills as you
work at it. Some important dialogue skills to practice are:

• Allowing others to finish
their thoughts

• Respecting others’ thoughts,
feelings, views, and realities, even when they differ from your own

Research on conversation or dialogue skills is not very
helpful in extending the skills list beyond the obvious. Most of this research
deals with young children, second-language learners, pathological cases, or
artificial intelligence programs. In all these cases mastering the obvious
skills represents a sufficient challenge.

The Dialogue Project at MIT,
founded by physicist David Bohm and carried forward through the influential
work of Peter Senge (1990), has helped pin down the concept of dialogue by
contrasting it with discussion: Discussion is aimed at settling differences,
whereas dialogue is aimed at advancing beyond the participants’ intial states
of knowledge and belief. Dialogue is purposeful, but it does not have a fixed
goal. The goal evolves or emerges as the dialogue proceeds. Ability to sustain this
open-ended yet goal-directed character would seem to be a hallmark of dialogic
literacy.

Technological Supports for Knowledge
Building Dialogue

Related to the
distinction between discussion and dialogue is a distinction we have proposed
in the treatment of ideas between “belief mode” and “design mode” (Bereiter
& Scardamalia, in press). In belief mode, the concern is with truth,
evidence, and coherence. Rational argument is the preferred form of discourse
in belief mode. In design mode, the concern is with the usefulness and
improvability of ideas. Collaborative, problem-solving dialogue is the
preferred form of discourse. Design mode is clearly the most relevant to
Knowledge Age occupations. It iscentral to the work of research groups, design teams, and innovators in
knowledge-based organizations. Schooling, however, has traditionally been
carried out almost exclusively in belief mode and accordingly has put the
emphasis on argumentative as opposed to problem-solving or knowledge building
discourse. This emphasis persists, even in areas like science education where
one might suppose that problem-solving dialogue would prevail (e.g.,Kuhn,
1993). Correspondingly, technology to support or teach dialogue skills has,
with one notable exception, focused on argumentation.

It should be noted, however,
that most of the software used in education is not conducive to either type of
dialogue. We have in mind the ubiquitous chat rooms, bulletin boards,
listserves, and discussion forums that accompany course management systems and
other learning ware. All of these favor brief question-answer or
opinion-reaction exchanges. Extended discussion that goes deeply into an issue
or problem is a rarity (Guzdial, 1997; Hewitt & Teplovs, 1999). Although a
dedicated instructor can sometimes guide discussion to deeper levels, the
technology itself wars against this by the hierarchical structure of message
threads, the inability to link across threads, the typically chronological
ordering of contributions, and above all the lack of any means of introducing a
higher-order organization of content—the synthesis or subsuming idea that is
the emergent result of the most successful dialogues. Technology that overcomes
these limitations is technically possible and is in fact available
(Scardamalia, 2002; Scardamalia & Bereiter, in press).

Whereas the communication
software in common use represents technical variations on e-mail, technology
designed to foster dialogue generally has some theoretical basis. For instance,
several applications to support argumentation are based on Toulmin’s (1958)
model of argument. The elements of logical argument identified by Toulmin are
used to structure and label dialogue contributions and are the basis of hints
to the users (Cho & Jonassen, 2002). The principal software to support
knowledge building discourse, Knowledge Forum®, is based on theoretical ideas
of knowledge processes, such as the distinction between knowledge-telling and
knowledge-transforming strategies in writing (Scardamalia & Bereiter,
1987), and a conception of expertise as progressive problem-solving (Bereiter
& Scardamalia, 1993).

Knowledge Forum is
characterized, not as a writing or discourse tool, but as a collaborative
knowledge building environment. This
implies that the knowledge work of the group is centrally carried out in
Knowledge Forum. Other knowledge-related activities such as experimentation and
model-building produce results that are brought into the environment, where
they become additional objects of inquiry and discussion. Rather than being
based on a message-passing model, like conventional online environments,
Knowledge Forum is based on a knowledge evolution model. Instead of producing a
string of messages, participants produce an evolving mutlimedia hypertext that
objectifies the knowledge that is being built. Mentors, visiting experts, or
classes in different schools are brought into the process, not through message
exchanges, but through entering the environment and joining in the work going
on there (Scardamalia & Bereiter, in press).

Dialogue presupposes a shared
goal that is valued by the participants. The mere airing of opinions (no matter
how passionately held) or, alternatively, the holding of mock debates and the
solving of artificial problems do not provide contexts conducive to the
development of dialogic literacy—regardless of the technological supports that
may be provided. Accordingly, it seems essential that fostering dialogic
literacy be part of a more general movement toward engaging students with big
ideas and deep principles. This implies that the main work of developing
dialogic literacy should go on in subject-matter courses rather than in
language arts or media courses. Most of the innovative work on dialogue is, in
fact, being carried out in science education, history education, and other
knowledge-rich fields, rather than being treated as an objective in itself.

Regardless of context, a
further issue is the structuring of dialogue. Harking back to the distinction
between dialogue and discussion, a fair generalization about classroom activity
structures is that they support discussion rather than dialogue. When there is
dialogue—a deliberate attempt to advance the state of knowledge—the teacher
typically plays the leading role, as is specifically the case with Socratic
dialogue (Collins & Stevens, 1982). The result, however, is that dialogue
skills are mainly exercised by the teacher, leaving the students in a reactive
role. A vital role for technology is to change that structure, so that students
are taking the initiative for moving dialogue ahead toward its emergent goal.
This requires that the technology be more than a discussion environment, that
it have the properties of a knowledge-building environment (Scardamalia &
Bereiter, in press).

Policy Implications: Making Dialogic
Literacy a Priority

The need to prepare
students for work in knowledge-based organizations is widely recognized.
Curriculum guidelines and standards already include, under headings such as
“21st Century Skills,” objectives thought to be in line with emerging
postindustrial needs. As regards literacies, these objectives frequently take a
technical, media-centered approach: Students are expected to become proficient
in the use of word processors, computer-based image-processing and
presentational software, to learn how to perform web searches, handle e-mail,
participate in web forums, and so on. Although there is no denying that these
are useful skills, it is important to recognize that they are the digital-age
equivalents of learning to hold a pencil, use a card catalog, and format a
business letter. In other words, they are low-level skills that are nowhere near
sufficient to prepare students for “knowledge work.”

Higher-order Knowledge Age
skills are also recognized. These generally have to do with collaboration,
initiative, communication, and creativity. The almost universally endorsed way
of folding these, along with the technical skills, into a learning package is
by means of collaborative “projects” (Moursund, 1999). It is here, however,
that “knowledge work” tends to degenerate into traditional “school work.”
Projects are typically run off according to a formula that, except for a
greater emphasis on collaboration and electronic media, has undergone no
significant change in the past century:Choose a topic, narrow the topic, collect material, organize it, produce
a draft, edit the draft. The criticisms that have been leveled for generations
against this ritualized practice are still appropriate: It is basically an
exercise, the product has no authentic purpose, and it is not preparation for
anything other than more school work of the same kind.

In this chapter we have argued
for “dialogic literacy” as an over-arching objective. In every kind of
knowledge-based, progressive organization, new knowledge and new directions are
forged through dialogue. Postindustrial management style calls for broadening
the base of those who participate in the dialogue. The dialogue in Knowledge
Age organizations is not principally concerned with narrative, exposition,
argument, and persuasion (the stand-bys of traditional rhetoric) but with
solving problems and developing new ideas. So, to be effective participants,
people have to be able to marshal their communication skills in the joint
pursuit of problem solutions and conceptual advances.

Bringing Knowledge Age
dialogue into the classroom will require a change much more profound than the
adoption of new activity structures or a shift from an instructivist to a
constructivist philosophy. It will require repurposing education so that innovation
and the pushing forward of knowledge frontiers are authentic purposes. Only
through such a systemic transformation can we reasonably expect that education
will provide an environment for the cultivation of new Knowledge Age
literacies.

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Scardamalia, M. (in press).Knowledge building environments:Extending the limits of the possible in education and
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